How to Clear a Casino Bonus: the Order of Operations
Four terms decide what a bonus costs and whether it can be finished at all, and the advertised multiplier is the least important of them. Read in the wrong order they produce the familiar outcome: a bonus that seemed generous, a week of play, and a balance that expired three hundred pounds short. Read in the right order they produce two divisions and a decision. This page gives the order, the ratio that picks the game, and the sum that tells you before you opt in whether the window is long enough.
The multiplier is stated in a currency you do not stake
A wagering requirement is quoted in contribution-weighted turnover. That phrase does no work until you notice that the weighting is a division: if a game contributes 10 per cent, every pound you stake advances the requirement by ten pence, so reaching the requirement takes ten pounds of real money for every pound of it.
With a multiplier m, a base B and a contribution rate c:
Real money staked = (m × B) ÷ c
So the effective multiplier, in money that actually leaves your balance and passes through the house edge, is m ÷ c.
| Game contribution | A 10x requirement becomes | Real money staked on a £50 bonus |
|---|---|---|
| 100% | 10x | £500 |
| 50% | 20x | £1,000 |
| 20% | 50x | £2,500 |
| 10% | 100x | £5,000 |
| 5% | 200x | £10,000 |
| 0% (excluded) | never clears | — |
The bottom of that table is the part worth sitting with. A ten times requirement — the most generous shape available in the British market, and the ceiling the regulator now imposes — becomes two hundred times the bonus in real stakes if it is cleared on a game contributing 5 per cent. The requirement has not changed. The table of contribution rates changed it, and that table is usually further down the page than the multiplier is. Our guide to game contribution rates sets out where those percentages come from, and excluded games versus contribution covers the distinction that the next section depends on.
The lowest house edge is usually the wrong game
The standard advice is to clear a bonus on the game with the smallest house edge, which sounds obviously right and is usually wrong. The expected cost of clearing is the real money staked multiplied by the edge, and the real money staked is the requirement divided by the contribution. Put those together and the edge and the contribution appear as a single ratio.
Expected cost = (m × B) × (edge ÷ contribution)
The game to choose is the one that minimises edge ÷ contribution. Neither number decides on its own, and contribution moves across a far wider range than edge does — from 100 per cent down to zero, against edges that rarely span more than a few percentage points.
Below, the same £50 bonus with a 10x requirement on bonus funds — £500 of weighted turnover — cleared six different ways. The contribution rates are illustrative of common terms rather than quotes from any operator; the edges for roulette are derived arithmetic, one in thirty-seven and two in thirty-eight, and the others are the conventional figures for a game played correctly. Every column was recalculated rather than copied.
| Game | House edge | Contribution | Edge ÷ contribution | Real money staked | Expected cost | Net on a £50 bonus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slots, 96% return to player | 4.00% | 100% | 0.040 | £500 | £20.00 | +£30.00 |
| Slots, 94% return to player | 6.00% | 100% | 0.060 | £500 | £30.00 | +£20.00 |
| Video poker, 99.5% return to player | 0.50% | 10% | 0.050 | £5,000 | £25.00 | +£25.00 |
| Blackjack, basic strategy | 0.50% | 5% | 0.100 | £10,000 | £50.00 | £0.00 |
| Roulette, single zero | 2.70% | 10% | 0.270 | £5,000 | £135.14 | −£85.14 |
| Roulette, double zero | 5.26% | 10% | 0.526 | £5,000 | £263.16 | −£213.16 |
Blackjack has one eighth of the house edge of the 96 per cent slot and costs two and a half times as much to clear on, because the contribution rate multiplies the exposure by twenty while the lower edge only divides the cost per pound by eight. Twenty beats eight, and that is the entire argument. The slot, the worst game on the list by the measure everyone uses, is the best game on the list by the measure that decides the outcome.
Two honest caveats belong with that conclusion rather than beneath it. The first is variance: clearing £500 on a high-volatility slot has a much wider spread of outcomes than clearing £10,000 at blackjack, and a bonus balance that reaches zero before the turnover is complete ends the attempt regardless of what the expectation said. The second is that these figures assume a game whose published return to player is the one you are actually playing at, which is worth checking in the game’s own information panel rather than assuming from a category.
Whether you can finish: two more divisions
Cost and feasibility are different questions, and a bonus can be cheap and unfinishable at the same time. The maximum permitted stake sets how much turnover you can generate per bet, and the expiry window sets how many bets you have time to place. Together they give a rate you can compare with how you actually play.
Minimum bets = real money staked ÷ maximum stake
Bets per day = minimum bets ÷ days in the window
Slots at 100% contribution, £5 maximum stake, 7-day window
£500 real stakes · 100 bets · about 14 a day
Comfortable. The window is not the binding constraint here and the requirement can be met in a single unhurried session without approaching the stake cap.
Roulette at 10% contribution, £5 maximum stake, 7-day window
£5,000 real stakes · 1,000 bets · about 143 a day
Possible but demanding, and note that the £5,000 is real money crossing the table. At a single-zero edge the expected cost has already overtaken the bonus by a wide margin, so finishing is not the same as winning.
Blackjack at 5% contribution, £5 maximum stake, 7-day window
£10,000 real stakes · 2,000 bets · about 286 a day
The lowest house edge on the list produces the largest exposure on the list, which is the whole argument of this page in one row. Two thousand hands in seven days is a commitment of hours, not minutes.
Roulette at 10% contribution, £2 maximum stake, 7-day window
£5,000 real stakes · 2,500 bets · about 357 a day
This is the shape that is not clearable in practice, and nothing in it is presented as unusual. A lower stake cap does not reduce what you must stake in total; it only raises the number of times you must do it.
The first and last rows describe the same bonus — the same multiplier, the same base, the same £50 — and differ by a factor of twenty-five in the effort required. Nothing in either set of terms would strike a reader as unusual. That is why the sum is worth doing at the moment of opting in, when it costs ten seconds, rather than on the last day of the window, when it costs the bonus. The maximum bet rule covers the forfeiture side of that cap, and bonus expiry and forfeiture covers what happens to the balance when the window closes with the turnover incomplete.
The order, in four steps
Read the terms in this sequence rather than the sequence they are printed in. Each step can end the enquiry, which is the point of putting them in this order: the cheapest question to answer is the one that disqualifies the offer.
1. The excluded list, before anything else
A game that contributes nothing cannot be made to contribute by playing it longer, and stakes placed there still cost you the house edge while advancing the requirement by zero. Excluded games and low-contribution games are usually printed in the same table, and confusing the two is the difference between a bonus that is expensive and a bonus that is impossible. Live dealer tables are the common surprise here.
2. The contribution rate of the game you actually intend to play
Not the best rate in the table, the rate for your game. This is the number that divides, so it moves the answer more than anything else on the page. Some terms also apply different rates to different titles within the same category, which means the category row is a summary and the title is the fact.
3. The maximum stake permitted while a bonus is active
This is a cap on the size of each bet, not on the total, so it does not reduce what you must stake overall — it only sets the minimum number of bets you must place to get there. Its second function is as a forfeiture trigger: a single stake over the cap is, under many sets of terms, enough to void the bonus and everything won with it, which makes it the most expensive line in the terms to skim.
4. The expiry window, and only now the multiplier
The window converts everything above into a rate. Required bets divided by days is the number to look at, because it is the one you can compare with how you actually play. The multiplier, which is the number the offer advertises and the only one most people read, comes last in this order precisely because it is the one that changes the answer least.
The multiplier still has to clear its own arithmetic, and that is a separate ceiling: our guide to what 10x, 20x and 35x wagering actually cost derives the highest multiplier worth accepting at a given return to player, and the wagering requirements calculator and casino bonus expected value calculator do the two sums on this page for your own figures.
One shape you should no longer meet in Great Britain
Until recently a common structure asked a customer to take a sports offer and clear it through casino play, or the reverse. It is worth naming because it was the most expensive shape of all: it moved the turnover onto a product with a different house edge from the one the customer had come for, and it did so at a contribution rate chosen by the operator.
Social Responsibility Code Provision 5.1.1, as amended with effect from 19 January 2026, states that licensees must not “include more than one type of gambling product (betting, casino, bingo, and lottery) within an incentive”. The same amendment capped wagering requirements at ten times bonus funds. Both are conditions on the licence rather than descriptions of the market everywhere, so the practical use of knowing them is as a test: an incentive that mixes products, or that asks for thirty-five times, is telling you something about which regime it belongs to before you read another line. Our guide to the 10x bonus wagering cap covers the provision in full, and casino bonus wagering explained covers the mechanics the cap applies to.
Anything on this page you have not met before is defined in the betting glossary, and the UK gambling regulation tracker records amendments after the date on this page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best game to clear a casino bonus on?
The one with the lowest ratio of house edge to contribution rate, which is usually not the one with the lowest house edge. Because a contribution rate below 100 per cent multiplies the real money you must stake, the cost of clearing is the required turnover multiplied by edge divided by contribution. A 96 per cent slot contributing 100 per cent gives a ratio of 0.04. Blackjack with a half per cent edge contributing 5 per cent gives 0.10, so it costs two and a half times as much despite having one eighth of the house edge. Single-zero roulette contributing 10 per cent gives 0.27 and is the worst of the three by a distance.
How does game contribution change the wagering requirement?
It divides. The wagering requirement is stated in contribution-weighted turnover, so real money staked equals the requirement divided by the contribution rate. A 10 times requirement on a 50 pound bonus is 500 pounds of weighted turnover. At 100 per cent contribution that is 500 pounds of real stakes. At 10 per cent it is 5,000 pounds, and at 5 per cent it is 10,000 pounds, which is two hundred times the bonus. The effective multiplier in real money is the stated multiplier divided by the contribution rate, and that single division explains most of the distance between how a bonus reads and how it behaves.
How do I know whether a bonus can be cleared in time?
Divide twice. Take the required turnover, divide by the contribution rate to get real money staked, then divide by the maximum stake the bonus terms allow to get the minimum number of bets, then divide by the days in the window to get bets per day. A 10 times requirement on a 50 pound bonus cleared on slots at 100 per cent contribution with a 5 pound cap is 100 bets, about 14 a day over a week. The same requirement on roulette at 10 per cent contribution with a 2 pound cap is 2,500 bets, or 357 a day. The second is not a demanding bonus, it is a bonus you will not finish, and the sum takes ten seconds before you opt in rather than five days afterwards.
Why do casinos exclude some games from wagering entirely?
Because a zero contribution game is not a slow route to clearing, it is a wall. Excluded games contribute nothing at all, so no amount of play on them advances the requirement, and stakes placed there still cost you the house edge. The distinction between a game that contributes a small percentage and a game that contributes nothing is the difference between expensive and impossible, and the two are often listed in the same table in the same typeface. Read the excluded list before the contribution table, because the excluded list can make the rest of the arithmetic irrelevant.
Can I clear a casino bonus by betting on sport?
Not under an incentive offered by an operator licensed in Great Britain. Social Responsibility Code Provision 5.1.1, as amended with effect from 19 January 2026, states that licensees must not include more than one type of gambling product, meaning betting, casino, bingo and lottery, within an incentive. The structure where a sports offer was cleared through casino play, or a casino offer through sports betting, is no longer permitted in that market. Where you do meet such an offer, the product-mixing shape is itself a signal about which regime you are dealing with.
Sources
The sources below were read on 20 September 2026. The wording of Social Responsibility Code Provision 5.1.1 was taken verbatim from the Commission’s consultation response and cross-checked against the Commission’s record of changes to the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice. Contribution rates and stake caps used in the worked examples are illustrative of terms commonly seen and are not quotes from any operator; the roulette edges are derived arithmetic and every cost, stake and bet count was recalculated independently.
- Gambling Commission, consultation response, proposed changes to LCCP SR Code 5.1.1, carrying the final wording of the product-mixing ban and the wagering requirement cap — gamblingcommission.gov.uk
- Gambling Commission, Previous changes to the LCCP, recording the amendment at paragraphs 3a and 3b with effect from 19 January 2026 — gamblingcommission.gov.uk
- Gambling Commission, licence condition 7.1.1, fair and transparent terms and practices, which governs how bonus terms must be presented — gamblingcommission.gov.uk
18+. Clearing a bonus means staking a large multiple of it, and the figures on this page are there to make that multiple visible before you agree to it rather than after. A requirement you cannot meet at a pace you would have chosen anyway is a reason to decline the offer, not a target to chase. Support, deposit limits and self-assessment tools are on our responsible gambling page.